The South during the fifties and sixties was the center of the Black Civil Rights Movement. The 1970s and early eighties catapulted the region
into the national limelight again, but for different reasons. The South
during this period was undergoing a number of dramatic demographic and
economic changes. It was now a major population and economic growth center. Growth in the region during the 1970s was stimulated by a number of
factors. They included: a climate pleasant enough to attract workers from
other regions and the "underemployed" workforce already in the region;
weak labor unions and strong right-to-work laws; cheap labor and cheap
land; attractive area for new industries, i.e., electronics, federal defense, and aerospace contracting; and aggressive self-promotion or booster campaigns.(
1) The South beginning in the mid-seventies was transformed from a "net exporter of people to a powerful human magnet."(
2)

The theme of this essay centers on the extent to which blacks shared
in the South's new growth. Several questions are explored. Did the boom
of the seventies pass over the region's black community? Did black population gains translate into comparable economic and political gains?
What impact did the economic recessions, or "bust" period of the early 1980s, have on black progress in the South?

THE RISE OF THE NEW SOUTH

The South in the 1970s desperately attempted to rid itself of the
image of a socially and economically "backward" region. The region was
vigorously promoted as the "New South." However, many of its old problems remained despite the growth. For example, both in-migrants and incumbent residents who had marginal skills generally found themsevles in
the growing unemployment lines.(
3) Individuals who did not have the
requisite education often became part of the emerging underclass. The
new prosperity in the South heightened the status differences in the
region. Poverty coexisted amid affluence. Poverty in the South represented a source of "cheap labor." The large pool of nonunionized labor
was also part of the so-called "good business climate."(
4)

Many household heads whose jobs only paid the minimum wage had to
work an extra job just to pull themselves above the poverty level.
Uneven development within the region's central cities and suburbs, and
companies' systematic avoidance of areas that had large concentrations of
blacks heightened the social and economic inequalities between blacks and
whites. Morever, white racism permeated nearly every institution in the
region. This persistent problem caused many writers to challenge the ex-

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